Saginaw mayor proposes more citations to help raise revenue

Saginaw Mayor Greg Branch believes his public safety proposal could be a key to help put the city's budget back on track.

Branch calls for more enforcement on what commonly may be considered lesser crimes in his 18-page proposal he submitted to the city manager. In the proposal, he wants the police to focus more on ticketing more people who speed, litter or even vandalize. He thinks it will not only help deter major crime but help pad the city's pocketbooks.

Some people TV5 talked to said if something like this shows promise, the city should do it.

"Enforcing the laws that are out there already, enforce them, that's what their job is to do is enforce them, and I say by all means, enforce them," said Saginaw resident Earl Settle.

Branch said focusing on writing more tickets could be quite a boost to the bottom line. In one projection, he shows that if an officer writes 18 tickets per shift, at an average of $75 each, the city could make an additional $4.4 million a year.

But one Saginaw resident says she can't buy in to this because she believes the focus needs to stick to major crimes the city deals with.

"I think they have bigger things they should be worrying about than spending their time on the streets trying to find traffic violations and stuff like that," said Saginaw resident Ashlee Glave.

Now in this same proposal, the mayor says the fire department could issue some citations as well. He calls for cross-training of firefighters to be building inspectors and code and environmental enforcement specialists. Ideally, firefighter work could bring in an additional $1.2 million in revenue.